* Send in the U.S. Navy! Actually, they’re already there. And, unfortunately, our armada isn’t particularly well-configured to scare off pirates; it’s really made to lay waste to a city, or to another navy. The American vessels best equipped to do the job won’t be ready for years. Ships from twenty countries are also on anti-pirate duty in the region. But coordination between the navies — and with the merchant companies — is uneven. So maybe step one is some kind of unified pirate-fighting command. Even with better cooperation, though, they won’t be able to cover all of those 1.1 million square miles of ocean that have become the hijackers’ hunting grounds.

* Kill the pirates! Yesterday’s head-shots aside, the international policy right now is to capture pirates, and send them to jail. But that doesn’t exactly have the Somalis shaking in their boats. So why can’t the Navy terminate the pirates, when they’re found? Well, floating around in a skiff, carrying an AK, is no crime. Nor is it an act of war. But an armed takeover of a vessel definitely is a criminal deed. Which means the pirates can get whacked, right? In fact, the international law is surprisingly murky here.

* Arm the crews! Let the merchant vessels take care of their own defense, in other words. So far, international rules have made it tough to bring firearms aboard the ships. But those rules may be about to change. Would armed-but-relatively-untrained crews be up to the test, if attacked?

* Form convoys!
It worked in World War II, to defend against U-boat attacks. Could it work against Somali pirates? Maybe, but the commercial shippers seem reluctant to wait to team up. And protecting all the merchants in the area would be an enormous undertaking.

Anyway, those are some initial thoughts. If it sounds like I’m trying to shoot down every option — I’m not. (Nor I am arguing that these options are mutually exclusive.) But I do think it’s important to get a realistic picture of the choices inherent in a full-scale anti-pirate fight. Now, let’s hear what you guys have to say.